Germany jails Iraqi jihadist for life for Yazidi genocide

German courts have already convicted five women for crimes against humanity related to the Yazidis committed in territories held by IS (AFP/Arne Dedert)]]]]]]

Issued on: 30/11/2021

Frankfurt (AFP) – A Frankfurt court on Tuesday handed a life sentence to an Iraqi man who joined the Islamic State group for genocide against the Yazidi minority, in the first verdict worldwide to use the label.

Taha Al-Jumailly, 29, was found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity resulting in death, war crimes, aiding and abetting war crimes and bodily harm resulting in death after joining IS in 2013.

Proceedings were suspended as the defendant passed out in court when the verdict was read out.

The Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking group hailing from northern Iraq, have for years been persecuted by IS militants who have killed hundreds of men, raped women and forcibly recruited children as fighters.

In May, UN special investigators reported that they had collected "clear and convincing evidence" of genocide by IS against the Yazidis.

"This is a historical moment for the Yazidi community," Natia Navrouzov, a lawyer and member of the NGO Yazda, which gathers evidence of crimes committed by IS against the Yazidis, told AFP ahead of the verdict.

"It is the first time in Yazidi history that a perpetrator stands in a court of law for genocide charges," she said.

Prosecutors say Al-Jumailly and his now ex-wife, a German woman named Jennifer Wenisch, "purchased" a Yazidi woman and child as household "slaves" while living in then IS-occupied Mosul in 2015.

They later moved to Fallujah, where Al-Jumailly is accused of chaining the five-year-old girl to a window outdoors in heat rising to 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) as a punishment for wetting her mattress, leading her to die of thirst.

In a separate trial, Wenisch, 30, was sentenced to 10 years in jail in October for "crimes against humanity in the form of enslavement" and aiding and abetting the girl's killing by failing to offer help.

Identified only by her first name Nora, the child's mother testified in both Munich and Frankfurt about the torment visited on her child.

She also described being raped multiple times by IS jihadists after they invaded her village in the Sinjar mountains in northwestern Iraq in August 2014.

'Clear message'

The mother was represented by a team including London-based human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, who has been at the forefront of a campaign for IS crimes against the Yazidis to be recognised as genocide, along with former Yazidi slave and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad.

Although Clooney did not travel to Munich or Frankfurt, she called Wenisch's conviction "a victory for everyone who believes in justice," adding that she hoped to see "a more concerted global effort to bring ISIS (another acronym for IS) to justice".

Murad has called on the UN Security Council to refer cases involving crimes against the Yazidis to the International Criminal Court or to create a specific tribunal for genocide committed against the community.

Germany, home to a large Yazidi community, is one of the few countries to have taken legal action over such abuses.

German courts have already handed down five convictions against women for crimes against humanity related to the Yazidis committed in territories held by IS.

Germany has charged several German and foreign nationals with war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out abroad, using the legal principle of universal jurisdiction which allows offences to be prosecuted even if they were committed in a foreign country.

The trial of Al-Jumailly "sends a clear message", according to Navrouzov.

"It doesn't matter where the crimes were committed and it doesn't matter where the perpetrators are, thanks to the universal jurisdiction, they can't hide and will still be put on trial."

© 2021 AFP

UK universities hit by strike action over pay and pensions


Latest round in bitter dispute will affect campuses across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland

Strikes will take place at the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan and Salford universities, among others. 

Photograph: Adam Vaughan/Rex/Shutterstock

Richard Adams Education editor
Tue 30 Nov 2021 18.30 GMT

More than a million students will be hit by three days of strikes on campuses across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland starting on Wednesday, in the latest round of an increasingly bitter dispute in which university leaders have accused leftwingers within the University and College Union (UCU) of blocking progress over a possible deal.

Fifty-eight universities will be affected where staff backed a ballot on strike action called by the UCU, halting lectures and tuition at the country’s largest universities, including the Open University and University College London.

In Greater Manchester alone, more than 100,000 postgraduate and undergraduate students will have their studies disrupted, with strikes taking place at the University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan and Salford universities, as well as the Royal Northern College of Music.

The dispute is in part over the management and financing of the University Superannuation Scheme (USS), which provides pensions to the UK’s older universities as well as research institutes and academic thinktanks. The two sides are also battling over low pay and issues such as insecure fixed-term contracts used to employ an increasing number of teaching staff.

In a statement issued on the eve of the strike, Universities UK (UUK) – which represents the employers in the pensions talks – argued that the strike was supported by only a minority of staff, and that the UCU’s leadership was being attacked by leftwingers.

UUK, the umbrella body of universities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, said a potential deal over pensions had been undermined by the union’s own negotiators, whom it described as “members of the influential UCU Left faction”, saying that there was “a pattern of checks on the UCU leadership by UCU Left, who are affiliated with the Socialist Workers party”.

“With such divisions in UCU’s decision-making bodies, it is difficult to see how a negotiated settlement over USS could ever be possible,” UUK said in its statement.

In response, a UCU spokesperson said: “It is beyond disappointing that just as 50,000 university staff are set to walk out on strike UUK has decided to spend its time targeting individual UCU members.

“Instead of engaging in desperate 11th-hour deflection tactics intended to undermine the strikes, UUK should come clean about the true impact of its pension cuts. After witnessing this bizarre intervention from UUK, students and staff will quite rightly ask why vice-chancellors are allowing their representative body to run amok instead of negotiating positively to resolve yet another dispute in the sector.”

But vice-chancellors are showing no signs of compromising, with some angry at the union’s actions and the failure of negotiations. “I don’t care if it’s bloody, as long as the blood spills within the union,” said one vice-chancellor.

According to UUK, the revisions to pensions on retirement amounted to cuts of 10% and 18% required for the fund to remain financially sound. But the union says its own modelling – prepared by an independent firm – shows a typical lecturer on an annual wage of £39,000 would face a cut to their defined and guaranteed benefits of 35%, while a model published by the USS trustees shows an even deeper 41% cut in future benefits.

Jo Grady, the UCU’s general secretary, said: “Not only have UUK been wrongly criticising UCU’s own projections of the scale of their pension cuts, but they have also adopted wild underestimates of their own, which have been repeated by vice-chancellors at universities up and down the UK in communications to their staff.

“It is beyond a disgrace that senior managers in our universities have been attempting to persuade staff from acting to stop cuts to their retirement with information that is wrong and which emanated right from the top of UUK.”

UCU also said re-balloting on strike action would take place at 42 universities where the ballot failed by only narrow margins, and that strikes would continue into the new year.

While most of the universities involved voted to strike on both the pensions and pay ballots, others only meet the conditions on the pay ballot, while a handful including Imperial College London are striking solely over pensions.

University leaders and ministers have said the strike will bring further disruption to students who have missed months of in-person teaching and the use of facilities such as libraries because of the closure of campuses during the pandemic.

The National Union of Students and a number of campus student unions have supported the strike. A poll of students conducted by the NUS this month found that 73% backed UCU’s action while 9% opposed it.

Port of Vancouver truckers issue strike notice

Drivers at 2 carriers set to walk out on Friday

 Monday, November 29, 2021
 

Around 200 container truckers serving the Port of Vancouver plan to strike starting Friday. 

(Photo: Vancouver Fraser Port Authority)

The union representing container truckers at two carriers serving the Port of Vancouver issued a 72-hour strike notice on Monday, setting the stage for yet another major disruption at Canada’s largest maritime trading facility beginning Friday.

Unifor issued the notice after talks with Aheer Transportation failed to yield a new agreement. Talks with Prudential Transportation also failed last week.

The truckers account for about 200 of the 1,700 drivers serving the Port of Vancouver. They have been seeking health and dental benefits, and more detention pay.

Union official Gavin McGarrigle, Unifor’s western regional director, told American Shipper that the drivers’ ultimate grievance goes beyond their carriers.

“When push comes to shove, the larger shipping community that continues to drive down rates needs to ask itself: What is the cost of getting some industrial peace so that we can all serve the greater good of getting as much volume out of the port as possible?” McGarrigle said. “So you just can’t let these shipping interests behind the scenes nickel and dime the trucking companies to the point where we have these sporadic disputes.”

The looming strike comes as the Port of Vancouver — Canada’s largest and busiest — continues to struggle with the aftermath of storms that cut off CN and Canadian Pacific rail lines. Over the weekend, the number of ships waiting to dock reached over 50 as a result of backlogs and the slow recovery of the rail lines.

The port had already been dealing with a record level of container volumes before the storms. The coming weeks will likely see Vancouver push the limits of its capacity to get through the backlog.

There is also a long history of labor disputes involving container truckers at the port. A strike in 2014 brought container operations to a near-standstill.

Canadian labor expert Sara Slinn, a law professor at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School, told American Shipper last week that the natural disaster in British Columbia, combined with the already unprecedented demands on the supply chain, would open the door for government intervention to end a strike if one goes forward.

“Port workers of all stripes have pretty significant bargaining power right now, but at the same time, it really is a crisis situation in parts of the province right now,” Slinn said. “I think it’s not an unreasonable argument that a strike would be a threat to the economy.”

Aheer and Prudential did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Taiwan secessionists, US meddlers to suffer ‘heavy blow’ amid ‘massive’ turnout in Honduras election

By Deng Xiaoci and Wan Hengyi

Published: Nov 29, 2021


Presidential candidate Xiomara Castro (Red) speaks after hearing the partial results of the elections, in Tegucigaloa, Honduras, 28 November 2021. Photo: thepaper.cn

Initial results from the Honduras presidential election showed that Xiomara Castro, the presidential candidate of the opposition is leading by 20 percentage points over the conservative ruling party contender Nasry Asfura.

Chinese observers said that they welcome the approaching victory of Castro, who is on track to becoming the first female president of the Central American country, as she once promised that if she wins, she would immediately open diplomatic and commercial relations with China and de-emphasize "ties" with the Taiwan authorities.

They said that such a result with a "massive turnout" showed that Hondurans are growing sick of the US-backed administration and Hondurans have realized that compared to the "dollar diplomacy" of the island of Taiwan, upholding the overriding global trend of the one-China principle could bring them more tangible benefits, even though its diplomatic policy may not be the deciding factor in the Latin American country's election.

Commenting on the lead of Castro, Wang Wenbin, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said on Monday that China is willing to develop friendly and cooperative ties with any country on the premise of upholding the one-China principle.

Honduras is one of the remaining 15 countries in the world that still have so-called "diplomatic ties" with Taiwan island, and if Castro's victory is officially confirmed and she keeps her promise, Honduras' new administration's change in attitude over the matter could bring an exemplary effect to the 14 other countries, Jiang Shixue, a professor and Director of Center for Latin American Studies at Shanghai University, told the Global Times on Monday.

If Honduras severs "ties with Taiwan," it will deal a heavy blow to the secessionists as well as sound the alarm for countries like Lithuania, which recently took on a wrong path over the Taiwan question by supporting Taiwan secessionists, he noted.

Hondurans and politicians could not overlook how its neighboring country El Salvador, which cut "diplomatic ties" with Taiwan island in 2018 and established formal ties with China, has prospered ever since, observers said. It is clear that many countries in this region have chosen to establish diplomatic relations with China for the development of their own societies. In contrast to the shady political donations provided to these countries by the island of Taiwan, as the island's netizens cynically pointed out, the mainland's aid and investment bring tangible benefits to the society.

Official data showed that in 2020, trade between China and El Salvador reached $1.11 billion, and exports from El Salvador to China were worth $172 million, a 51.6 percent year-on-year increase. China has also offered to help build several major infrastructure projects in El Salvador, including a stadium and water treatment plant, inviting the country to join the Belt and Road Initiative.

Since March, China has also provided COVID-19 vaccines to aid El Salvador's battle against the pandemic. Thanks to China's timely aid, more than 55.6 percent of El Salvador's population has been inoculated, leading the Latin American region, the Xinhua News Agency reported on October 27.

In contrast, Honduras had attempted to get access to China-made coronavirus vaccines, when the Central American nation was experiencing a shortage several months ago. However, the nation's chief cabinet coordinator, Carlos Alberto Madero, told the Financial Times that being Taiwan's "ally" had prevented it from acquiring vaccines from China. He warned that Tegucigalpa may switch diplomatic recognition to Beijing, as access to vaccines was "much more urgent than anything else."

As of press time, the vaccinated rate in El Salvador was 62.3 percent and that for Honduras was less than 40 percent.

However despite the prospect of fostering formal ties with China if Castro is elected, the US will not give up interfering in the process, analysts said.

A visiting US delegation led by Brian Nichols, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs to Honduras made clear to Honduran presidential candidates last week that the US wants Honduras to maintain its long-standing "diplomatic" relations with the island of Taiwan.

The US also warned Central American nations of "the risks associated with China's approach to the region," Reuters reported.

Slamming such apparent US coercion, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said on November 25 that it is not China's approach that the Latin American people should be wary of, but the US' long-standing hegemonic approach of regarding Central American countries as the US "backyard."

The US has felt a sense of losing control in its "backyard" as it fears that Honduras would follow El Salvador, Panama and the Dominican Republic and establish ties with China. It will exert pressure from all dimensions to hinder the process, which might include sanctions or a threat to pause aid, observers noted.

Opposition leads after ‘massive’ turnout in Honduras election

Victory for Xiomara Castro would make her Honduras’s first female president and first from the left since 2009.

Castro, LIBRE's presidential candidate, and vice-presidential candidate Nasrala in upbeat mood after the closing of the general election [Jose Cabezas/Reuters]
Published On 29 Nov 2021

Initial results from the presidential election in Honduras show opposition candidate Xiomara Castro with a clear lead over conservative ruling party contender Nasry Asfura after both sides claimed victory after polls closed on Sunday.

Castro, whose running mate is Salvador Nasrala, declared herself the winner despite orders from the National Electoral Council to political parties to await official results.

“We win! We win!” Castro, Honduras’ former first lady who is making her third presidential run, told cheering Liberty and Refoundation Party (LIBRE) supporters when only a fraction of the ballots had been tallied.

The National Party also quickly declared victory for its candidate, Tegucigalpa Mayor Nasry Asfura, but the early returns were not promising.

With 45 percent of the polling station tallies in, Castro had 53 percent of the votes and Asfura 33 percent, according to the National Electoral Council preliminary count. The council said turnout was more than 68 percent.

If the opposition standard-bearer wins, she would become the first female president in Honduras and return the left to power for the first time since her husband, former President Manuel Zelaya, was overthrown in a 2009 coup.

The electoral council earlier said more than 2.7 million voters had already cast ballots, a figure described in a statement as a “massive turnout” with more votes yet to be counted.

The initial turnout is already higher than the 2017 total, said council president Kelvin Aguirre. But nearly 8 percent of 5,755 polling places were having transmission problems filing vote tallies with electoral authorities, which was expected to delay results.

A strong turnout has raised expectations of change after a dozen years of National Party rule.

Long queues at many polling stations raised expectations of a change in government [Orlando Sierra/AFP]

Left-wing Castro has sought to unify opposition to outgoing President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who has denied accusations of having ties to powerful gangs, despite an open investigation in the United States linking him to alleged drug trafficking.

After allying with the 2017 runner-up, a popular TV host, most polls have reinforced her frontrunner status.

“We can’t stay home. This is our moment. This is the moment to kick out the dictatorship,” said Castro, mobbed by reporters just after voting in the town of Catacamas

Long queues could be seen at many polling places across the country, where some 5.2 million Hondurans are eligible to vote.

The election is the latest political flashpoint in Central America, a leading source of US-bound refugees and migrants fleeing chronic unemployment and gang violence. Honduras is among the world’s most violent countries, although homicide rates have dipped recently.

Central America is also a key transit point for drug trafficking, and an area where concerns have grown over increasingly authoritarian governments.

The vote also has prompted diplomatic jostling between Beijing and Washington after Castro said she would open diplomatic relations with China, de-emphasising ties with Taiwan, the self-ruled island that China claims as its own.
‘This is Honduras’

Asfura, a wealthy businessman and two-term mayor of the capital, is Castro’s main rival among 13 presidential hopefuls. He has sought to portray his rival as a radical while trying to distance himself from the unpopular incumbent.


After casting his ballot, a measured Asfura said he would respect voters’ verdict.

“Whatever the Honduran people want in the end, I will respect that,” he said.

Some voters consulted by the Reuters news agency expressed dissatisfaction with their choices, but many others had clear favourites.

“I’m against all the corruption, poverty and drug trafficking,” said Jose Gonzalez, 27, a mechanic who said he would vote for Castro.

Hernandez’s disputed 2017 re-election, and its ugly aftermath, looms large. Widespread reports of irregularities provoked protests that killed more than two dozen people, but he rode out the fraud claims and calls for a re-vote.

Alexa Sanchez, a 22-year-old medical student, lounged on a bench just after voting while listening to music on her headphones and said she reluctantly voted for Castro.

“Honestly, it’s not like there were such good options,” she said, adding she was highly sceptical that the vote would be clean.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “This is Honduras.”

If Castro wins, she will become Honduras’s first female president and return the left to power [Jose Cabezas/Reuters

]

Asfura has tried to distance himself from the unpopular incumbent [Fredy Rodriguez/Reuters]

Numerous national and international election observers monitored Sunday’s voting, including the European Union’s 68-member mission.

Zeljana Zovko, the chief EU observer, told reporters around midday that her team mostly saw calm voting with high turnout, although most polling stations they visited opened late.

“The campaign has been very hard,” said Julieta Castellanos, a sociologist and former dean of Honduras’s National Autonomous University, noting that Castro has “generated big expectations”.

Castellanos said post-election violence was possible if the race proved especially close, if a large number of complaints were lodged, or if candidates declared themselves victorious prematurely.

Alongside the presidency, voters are also deciding the composition of the country’s 128-member Congress, plus officials for some 300 local governments.

In Tegucigalpa’s working-class Kennedy neighbourhood, 56-year-old accountant Jose, who declined to give his surname, said he would stick with the ruling party.

“I have hope Tito Asfura can change everything,” he said, using the mayor’s nickname.

“Look, here the corruption is in all the governments.”

SOURCE: REUTERS

'Triumph for Democracy': Socialist Candidate Takes Commanding Lead in Honduran Election

Xiomara Castro, wife of Manuel Zelaya, a leftist former president ousted in a U.S.-backed coup in 2009, is on track to defeat the candidate of the right-wing incumbent party.

Honduran presidential candidate for the Libre party, Xiomara Castro, celebrates at the party's headquarters after general elections in Tegucigalpa, on November 28, 2021. (Photo: Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images)

KENNY STANCIL

COMMONDREAMS

November 29, 2021


Leftist presidential candidate Xiomara Castro took a decisive lead in Honduras' election on Sunday, setting her up to defeat the right-wing incumbent party's candidate—though progressive observers stressed the need to remain vigilant as ballots continue to be counted and reactionary forces ramp up misinformation following an apparently unsuccessful attempt to suppress voting.

"Xiomara Castro's likely victory is a testament to the will of the Honduran people to have their voices heard and their votes counted."

A victory by Castro would represent a repudiation of U.S. intervention in Central America. Honduras' potential next president is the wife of Manuel Zelaya, the country's former progressive president who was deposed in a Washington-backed coup in 2009—after which narco-violence surged under the watch of an authoritarian neoliberal regime installed by the Obama administration and supported by subsequent administrations.

If she wins, Castro would be the first Honduran president to be democratically elected on a socialist platform, as well as the first woman to lead the country. With just over half of ballots processed, the Libre Party's Castro had garnered 53.6% of the vote, compared with 34% for Nasry Asfura, the candidate from the right-wing National Party, which has ruled the country for the past dozen years.

Castro "hopes to restore diplomatic relations with China, legalize abortion and same-sex marriage, and defend the interests of the poor and working class," according to Telesur.

Calling the 62-year-old democratic socialist's solid performance a "triumph for democracy over corruption and election irregularities," Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said in a statement that "Xiomara Castro's likely victory is a testament to the will of the Honduran people to have their voices heard and their votes counted."

"The international community should be on guard and ready to defend Honduras' democratic institutions, and the will of its people, against any extra-legal efforts to destabilize or overthrow the new government."

"Democracy remains very fragile in Honduras," Weisbrot warned. "This is a country that saw the military kidnap the president at gunpoint and fly him out of the country just 12 years ago, and there was very strong evidence that the elections of four years ago were stolen" by the ruling National Party.

Indeed, Castro's current lead materialized despite the best efforts of the incumbent right-wing government to suppress participation.

Progressive International (PI), whose new observatory to protect democracy sent delegates to Honduras to monitor the electoral process, drew attention to reports that the ruling National Party was attempting to buy votes.

On Sunday morning, Salvador Nasralla—a former presidential candidate who led Honduras' 2017 election by 5 percentage points with 57% of votes counted before a 30-hour delay and other "technical failures" ultimately resulted in a National Party victory—said that the website of the National Electoral Council (CNE) had been "intentionally taken down" and that right-wing officials were giving voters inaccurate information about polling places.

Hours later, CNE announced that its server had been attacked, which PI said "has prevented voters from locating their polling station," causing long lines to form.

With polls still open and before a single ballot had been counted, the incumbent right-wing government said on Sunday afternoon that Asfura had won—in violation, Telesur reported, of "national electoral law prohibiting the premature claiming of victory before the competent authorities release their preliminary results... which the CNE did just after 8:00 pm local time."


Journalist Denis Rogatyuk warned that "the party that turned Honduras into a narco-state will be unlikely to relinquish power peacefully."


The ruling National Party's alleged vote-buying and premature victory claims, along with the yet-to-be-resolved attacks on the CNE's website, weren't enough to deter hundreds of thousands of Honduran voters from casting ballots for the opposition Libre Party. Turnout was over 60%.

"Hondurans flocked to the polls in near-record numbers to decide the successor of the deeply unpopular current president, Juan Orlando Hernández," the New York Times reported. "Hernández's presence was palpable at the polls after his government spent the past eight years dismantling the country's democratic institutions and allowing corruption and organized crime to permeate the highest levels of power."

As the election progressed, Castro also declared victory. Once the preliminary tally showed Asfura falling behind by a significant margin, she told "jubilant supporters at her campaign headquarters on Sunday night that she would begin forming a government of national reconciliation starting on Monday," the Times reported.

"We have turned back authoritarianism," Castro told the crowd in the capital city of Tegucigalpa. "Out with corruption, out with drug trafficking, out with organized crime."

Although Castro has taken a commanding lead, it could take days for results to be finalized. In the meantime, electoral observers have emphasized the need to remain vigilant in the coming hours.

Earlier this morning, for instance, a Honduran newspaper shared a misleading graph that suggests Asfura is winning even as he trails Castro by roughly 20 percentage points. Jumping at the chance to use a pun, PI general coordinator David Adler described the chart as an example of "graphic violence."



While Castro's advantage is much larger than the opposition's early lead in 2017, making it more difficult for right-wing forces to subvert the election, The Guardian noted that a close outcome four years ago "led to a contested result and deadly protests after widespread allegations of irregularities."

According to Telesur, "Fears of the military and business elite repeating a similar scenario to the one from 2017 in which electoral fraud and manipulation stole the presidency from liberal candidate Salvador Nasralla (who has backed Castro) and gave it to the right-wing narco-dictator Juan Orlando Hernández have, until now, not materialized, with Honduras proving ready to fight for the integrity of their democratic process in the streets and with their life, if necessary, as recent history has shown."

As Weisbrot noted, "The U.S. government supported the 2009 military coup in various ways, and so it will be good if members of Congress who favor democracy will make sure that the executive branch here respects democracy in Honduras more than they have in the past."

"On the positive side," said Weisbrot, "members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have taken steps to hold the OAS accountable for its role in the 2019 military coup in Bolivia, so there are pro-democracy forces in Congress."

"The international community," he added, "should be on guard and ready to defend Honduras' democratic institutions, and the will of its people, against any extra-legal efforts to destabilize or overthrow the new government."

This story has been updated with comments from Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Honduras Election Front-Runner Vows New Era but Is Tied to Past

Xiomara Castro, headed toward becoming her country’s next president, promises to expunge its legacy of corruption, but change may be tempered by her establishment ties and conservative opposition.


Xiomara Castro during her presidential election campaign in Honduras this month.Credit...Daniele Volpe for The New York Times

By Anatoly Kurmanaev and Joan Suazo

NEW YORK TIMES
Nov. 29, 2021

MEXICO CITY — The Honduras opposition candidate, Xiomara Castro, inched closer to an astounding presidential victory on Monday, promising a new era of democratic inclusion in a nation where despair has driven hundreds of thousands to the U.S. border seeking refuge in recent years.

Ms. Castro, 62, held a 20 percentage point lead over the candidate of the incumbent National Party with 51 percent of the ballot boxes counted. The results of the Sunday vote appeared to show a stunning repudiation of the National Party’s 12-year rule, which was shaped by pervasive corruption, dismantling of democratic institutions and accusations of links with drug cartels.

Thousands of Hondurans poured into the streets to celebrate what they believed was Ms. Castro’s insurmountable lead, shooting fireworks and singing “JOH, JOH, and away you go,” a reference to the initials of the deeply unpopular outgoing President Juan Orlando Hernández.

Many voiced hopes that Ms. Castro, should she prevail, would be able to cure the chronic ills that have mired the country in poverty and desperation for decades — widespread graft, violence, organized crime and mass migration.

They also remained wary of the National Party possibly trying to commit electoral fraud in the results that remained uncounted, given that the party’s leaders may face corruption or even drug trafficking charges after leaving office.

“We will recover Honduras, because we are now governed by criminals,” said Mariela Sandres, a student, who celebrated outside Ms. Castro’s campaign headquarters on Sunday night.

The National Party refused to concede defeat, asserting that it will win once all the votes are counted. But in a positive signal for Ms. Castro, the president of Honduras’s business chamber congratulated her on her apparent victory, offering to work with her on rebuilding the country’s economy.



Supporters of Xiomara Castro in Tegucigalpa on Sunday.

Credit...Moises Castillo/Associated Press

Ms. Castro in some ways represents a break with Honduras’s traditional politics. Her commanding lead, in what has been a largely peaceful election so far, also appeared to present a democratic reprieve from a wave of authoritarianism sweeping Central America.

If the current returns stand, she will become the first female president in a deeply conservative nation, and its first leader to be democratically elected on a socialist platform.

She has promised to rebuild the country’s weakened democracy and bring in all sectors of Honduran society to overhaul a state that has served the interests of a small group of elites since it was a Spanish colony centuries ago. In a speech on Sunday night, Ms. Castro told supporters that she would immediately begin talks with political allies and opponents alike to form a government of national unity.

“Never again will the power be abused in this country,” she said.

Ms. Castro said she would consider legalizing abortion in limited cases and would bring back international corruption investigators who were forced out by Mr. Hernández after they started examining suspected graft in his inner circle.

Yet, Ms. Castro is also deeply tied to Honduras’ political establishment. And her ability to meet campaign promises is likely to be severely challenged by opposition from the more conservative sectors in congress and within her own political coalition.

At her election rallies, Ms. Castro capitalized on Hondurans’ widespread repudiation of Mr. Hernández’s rule. But she has been vague about what her own government would do, beyond showering Hondurans with new subsidies and repealing the most unpopular measures of the current government.

During the closing campaign rally in the business capital of San Pedro Sula, she struggled to remember what those measures were. “What’s that other law?” she asked the crowd, as she attempted to list Mr. Hernández’s policies that she would overturn.

Ms. Castro’s candidacy has been shaped by her marriage to Mel Zelaya, a wealthy Honduran landowner and former president who was deposed in a military coup in 2009, after having tried to emulate the policies of Venezuela’s president at the time, Hugo Chávez.

Mr. Zelaya, who remains a polarizing figure in Honduras, is the founder and the head of Ms. Castro’s political party and has served as her campaign manager. Should her victory be confirmed, he is widely expected to play a prominent role in the administration led by Ms. Castro, who had been living mostly outside Honduras since the coup.



Hondurans vote during the general election in Tegucigalpa on Sunday.

Credit...Fredy Rodriguez/Reuters


The prospect of a shadow government led by Mr. Zelaya could create tensions with Ms. Castro’s more conservative supporters, who voted for her to break with Mr. Hernández but are wary that Honduras could renew its alliance with Venezuela and Cuba.

Ms. Castro’s ambitious socialist proposals could also complicate relations with the United States, which many in Honduras blame for supporting the controversial elections that brought the National Party to power after the coup.

In her campaign program, Ms. Castro called for creation of a Constituent Assembly that would rewrite Honduras’s Constitution. Mr. Zelaya’s effort as president to draft a new constitution was a main reason for the coup from the conservative military and business elites, who feared a leftist power grab in a country that has been deeply allied with the United States.

She has sought to assuage the elites’ fears by courting businessmen, bringing in technocratic advisers, allying herself to center-right parties and meeting with the United States diplomats.

Ms. Castro has also significantly scaled back her progressive social agenda to dampen conservative attacks. After initially supporting abortion ban exemptions, as well as sex and race education in schools, she recently said these policies should be put to public debate, and began to emphasize her Catholic upbringing.

Ms. Castro’s promises to reduce inequality and cut the cost of living will be complicated by the heavy debt burden left to her by Mr. Hernández’s outgoing government. And her plans to root out corruption could be compromised by accusations of graft made against the family of Mr. Zelaya, and the former president’s personal ties to discredited political elites.

The prospects for change in Ms. Castro’s administration will depend heavily on her coalition’s strength in the new congress. The electoral council is yet to announce any results from congressional races.

“It’s going to be highly difficult to govern without a majority in congress,” said Pedro Barquero, the campaign chief for the Savior of Honduras Party, which is allied to Ms. Castro.

Through her campaign staff, Ms. Castro has declined multiple interview requests before and since the vote.

For his part, Mr. Zelaya said he wanted to rebuild good relations with the United States, calling it Honduras’s vital partner.

“I think the U.S. has understood that sectors of their government have brought the country to an abyss” following the coup, he said. “We hope the Biden administration has learned the lesson and are willing to work with us.”

But Mr. Zelaya declined to describe his current position on Venezuela, which since he was deposed has slid into economic collapse and authoritarianism. All he has said regarding Venezuela’s crisis is that “the people have the governments that they deserve.”



Supporters of the National Party, which has ruled Honduras for 12 years, before the presidential election on Sunday.

Credit...Daniele Volpe for The New York Times


More on the Honduras and the Election

What’s at Stake in the Honduran Presidential Election?
Nov. 28, 2021

Hondurans seek a break from graft and despair in an election with repercussions for the United States.
Nov. 28, 2021

A Damning Portrait of Presidential Corruption, but Hondurans Sound Resigned
March 23, 2021

Honduran Leader Vowed to Help Flood U.S. With Cocaine, Prosecutor Says
March 9, 2021

Anatoly Kurmanaev is a correspondent based in Mexico City, covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Prior to joining the Mexico bureau in 2021 he has spent eight years reporting on Venezuela and the surrounding region from Caracas. @akurmanaev
A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 30, 2021, Section A, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Honduras Front-Runner Vows New Era, but Has Strong Ties to the Past. 

Tough road ahead for Honduras' new president Castro

 

Former first lady Xiomara Castro will have a tough job on her hands once her expected election victory as Honduras's first woman president is confirmed (AFP/LUIS ACOSTA)

From Twitter

Russell Contreras

RussContreras

Leftist opposition candidate Xiomara Castro claimed victory in Honduras’ presidential election Sunday, setting up a showdown with the ruling conservative National Party which could end their 12 years in power www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-11-28/both-political-parties-claim-victory-in-honduras-presidential-vote pic.twitter.com/qxr4hxj9ok

Twitter2021-11-29 12:20 a.m.

Michael Reid

michaelreid52

Honduras: yesterday's presidential election appears to confirm the overriding trend of anti-incumbency in Latin America, with Xiomara Castro, a leftist, 20 points ahead (with 50% counted) of the candidate of the corrupt ruling party. elpais.com/internacional/2021-11-29/los-dos-partidos-se-declaran-ganadores-en-honduras.html?ssm=TW_CC via @el_pais

Twitter2021-11-29 2:10 a.m.

Xiomara Castro de Zelaya

XiomaraCastroZ

❤️ 🇭🇳

Twitter2021-11-27 4:39 p.m.

Jan-Albert Hootsen 🇳🇱🇲🇽

jahootsen

Here's another important article in the runup to Sunday's presidential election in #Honduras: Could Honduras Shift Left? A Look at Xiomara Castro - by @BrenOBoyle for @AmerQuarterly www.americasquarterly.org/article/could-honduras-shift-left-a-look-at-xiomara-castro/

Twitter2021-11-26 3:38 p.m.

 

12-year wait pays off for wife of former PM

Published:Tuesday | November 30, 2021

Moises Castillo
Free Party presidential candidate Xiomara Castro speaks to her supporters after general elections in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Sunday.


TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP):

Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, the wife of ousted former President Mel Zelaya, has taken a commanding lead in Honduras’ elections, capping a 12-year effort.

If preliminary tallies from the election on Sunday are confirmed, Castro de Zelaya would become the Central American country’s first female president.

Her victory would also mark the return of her family to the presidential residence that they were ousted from in a 2009 coup.

The 62-year-old, three-time candidate has long said, “the third try is the charm”.

She grew up in the capital, Tegucigalpa, but moved to her husband’s rural province of Olancho, known for its cattle ranches, when the couple wed.

Together they raised four children, and during her husband’s 2006-2009 tenure, she played a relatively minor role, overseeing programmes for women and children.

But it was after the 2009 coup, which forced her husband into exile, that Castro de Zelaya came to the forefront. With Mel Zelaya running a sort of government in exile in Costa Rica and later in Nicaragua, it was up to his wife to lead the string of protests demanding his return and re-instatement.

By the time Zelaya formed the Libre, or Free Party, Castro de Zelaya’s popularity was evident among followers of the movement. Besides, the country’s constitution prohibited her husband from running for re-election.

Since 2013, the first time she ran, Castro de Zelaya has been the principal thorn in the side of Juan Orlando Hernández, the current president who won elections in 2013, and then gained the blessings of the country’s supreme court to run for re-election in 2017.

Castro de Zelaya ceded her candidacy in 2017 to Salvador Nasralla, a TV personality who ran at the head of an opposition coalition and claimed to have narrowly defeated Hernández.

After a protracted election filled with irregularities in 2017, protesters filled the streets and the government imposed a curfew. Three weeks later, Hernández was declared the winner, despite the Organization of American States observation mission calling for an election rerun. At least 23 people were killed.

Since then, Castro de Zelaya’s movement has focused laser-like on getting Hernández out of office.

Hernández became a national embarrassment, with US federal prosecutors in New York accusing him of running a narco-state and fuelling his own political rise with drug money. Hernández has denied it all and has not been formally charged, but that could change once he leaves office.

Castro de Zelaya sees it as a campaign to free her country.

“Honduras has been described as a narco-state because of the mafia that governs us, and we have also been described as the most corrupt country in Latin America,” Castro de Zelaya said at a recent campaign event. “People of Honduras, now is the time to say enough of the misery, poverty and exclusion that our country suffers.”

Noe LEIVA, Barnaby CHESTERMAN
Tue, November 30, 2021

Once Xiomara Castro's expected election victory is confirmed, making her Honduras's first woman president, she will immediately face a daunting panorama of challenges.

With more than half of the votes counted, experts say Castro's 20 percentage point lead is "irreversible."

Here AFP looks at the toughest obstacles Castro is likely to face when taking office as head of a country wracked by gang violence, drug trafficking, corruption and widespread poverty.


- Dismantling corruption

According to Transparency International, Honduras is 157th out of 180 countries in its corruption perception index, making it one of the most graft-tainted places in the world.

Under outgoing President Juan Orlando Hernandez, the anti-corruption fight in Honduras suffered several blows in 2020.

Firstly a regional anti-corruption commission was disbanded, then congress passed a new criminal code to lower graft sentences, and finally a special appeals court dismissed charges against almost two dozen people accused of embezzling $12 million of public money.

Earlier this year a new penal code -- dubbed the impunity law -- came into effect that makes it tougher to try people for corruption.

The first task for Castro will be to reverse "all those laws and legislative reforms that previously allowed the current government to protect corrupt officials," said Victor Meza, the director of the Honduran Documentation Center NGO that promotes democracy.

It is a battle that she cannot win on her own, though.

"The issue of corruption and impunity is so strong that it needs outside actors to be able to" dismantle it, said Gustavo Irias, executive director of the Center for Democracy Studies.

- Tackle causes of mass migration

More than a dozen migrant caravans have set off from Honduras since October 2018 in the hope of reaching the United States.

Some of these consisted of thousands of people and former US president Donald Trump at one point threatened to deploy the US military to stop them.

In 2021 alone 50,000 Honduran migrants have been sent home from either the United States or Mexico.

The main solution is to create jobs.

Castro's LIBRE party in its campaign identified "the lack of employment as one of the most serious factors in the expulsion of the population."

Political analyst Raul Pineda says the problem is that even educated people cannot find work.

"They go to other countries because they don't have opportunities" in Honduras.

The Covid pandemic hit jobs particularly hard with unemployment almost doubling from 5.7 percent in 2019 to 10.9 percent in 2020.

Around 59 percent of the population lives in poverty.

- Fighting drug trafficking -

Drug trafficking has become such a problem in Honduras that it even pervades the very top rungs of government.

Family members of Honduras's last two presidents have been jailed in the United States for drug trafficking.

One of the main presidential candidates, Yani Rosenthal served three years in a US jail for laundering drug trafficking money.

Honduras has been branded a "narco-state" over government links to the illicit business.

Drug barons extradited to the United States by Hernandez have even pointed the finger at him.

Migdonia Ayestas, director of the Violence Observatory at the National University says Castro needs to "attack impunity" that sees politicians and criminal gangs working together in drug trafficking.

To do so will involve "the purification of justice agencies, the police."

- Managing foreign relations

The United States took great interest in the presidential poll, sending assistant secretary of state for the western hemisphere Brian Nichols to the country to meet with officials and demand "transparent and peaceful elections."

"The Americans feel they are losing influence in Central America," said Pineda.

"They have a bad relationship with El Salvador, a bad relationship with Nicaragua ... the relationship with Guatemala has cooled a lot, so to lose Honduras would be to lose control of Central America."

The US maintains a military base in Honduras, ostensibly to provide humanitarian aid to the region.

Leftist Castro was rumored to have made overtures to China during the election campaign but Pineda cannot see a drastic change in foreign policy.

"It's not an ideological issue, it's about interests, opportunities," he said.

"China has shown no interest in tightening relations with Honduras.

"The US is the power that we orbit around. They buy 95 percent of our exports, they lend us money so the Honduran economy can survive ... they can maintain the economy of this country so no government is going to fight with them while this economic dependency exists."

nl/bc/mtp

NEWSMAKER-Castro vows to pull Honduras 'out of the abyss' as first female president

by Reuters
Monday, 29 November 2021 
By Gustavo Palencia

TEGUCIGALPA, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Honduras' leftist politician Xiomara Castro, who is on track https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/honduras-set-woman-president-leftist-castro-declares-victory-2021-11-29 to be the first female president of the Central American nation, doesn't shy away from making history.

In 2009, she catapulted herself to the helm of a protest movement after her husband, former president Manuel Zelaya, was ousted by a military coup, which pitched Honduras into crisis.

The Liberty and Refoundation (Libre) party emerged out of this movement, and after Sunday's elections it was slated to break a century-long run of governments formed from one of two parties.

Castro, 62, looked set for a landslide victory that would bring an end to 12 years of conservative National Party rule marred by corruption, allegations of the president's links to drug trafficking, and an exodus of migrants.

The second of five children in a middle-class family, Castro was born in 1959 in Tegucigalpa. She earned a bachelor's degree in business administration and later moved northeast of the capital where she raised four children with Zelaya.

Promoting "democratic socialism," Castro wants to decriminalize abortion, reduce bank charges for remittances, create a U.N.-backed anti-corruption commission and repeal new laws that she says feeds corruption and drug trafficking.

"I believe firmly that the democratic socialism I propose is the solution to pull Honduras out of the abyss we have been buried in by neo-liberalism, a narco-dictator and corruption," Castro said in a campaign speech.

MORE DIRECT DEMOCRACY

"Participatory democracy" in the form of referendums and consultations on big policy changes will be central to Castro's administration, according to a document outlining her government's plans. Previous attempts at more direct democracy in Latin America have at times conversely strengthened patronage politics and leaders' power.

Castro will also convene a national assembly that could allow her to overhaul the constitution, a proposal her husband Zelaya initiated shortly before his overthrow. The document is vague on the goal of the overhaul, but mentions guaranteeing social and economic rights.

When Zelaya was president Castro was especially active in policymaking and pushed for social programs and subsidies for poor children, women and the elderly, which helped build her popularity.

She has also run agricultural and timber companies in the private sector.

Despite similarities in policy, Zelaya did not take a big role in his wife's campaign.

"Ex-president Zelaya knows that as party coordinator, he has a relationship of deferential respect to the president," said historian and longtime friend of the candidate Anarella Velez.

Velez added that Castro's strong-willed personality would keep her firmly in control of government.

The National Party, which was beset by corruption scandals, sought to portray Castro as a dangerous radical in order to remain in power.

Yet, while Castro's party Libre is part of the Sao Paolo Forum, an organization with the goal of reimagining the Latin American left after the fall of the Berlin wall, many doubt Castro will adopt extreme policies.

"We might see some cozying up to governments that preach 19th-century socialism, but it will be more a formality than anything else," said political analyst Raul Pineda.

"Honduras depends on trade with the United States and it's so weak it can't survive even a month of economic isolation from Washington." (Reporting by Gustavo Palencia, writing by Jake Kincaid; editing by Laura Gottesidener and Grant McCool)

Ryan Reynolds, Catherine O'Hara brought to tears during song tributes for their Governor General's awards

Tom Yun

CTVNews.ca writer
Published Monday, November 29, 2021 

Canadian actors Ryan Reynolds (left) and Catherine O'Hara (right) react as they watch their song tributes at the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards. (GGAwards-PrixGG/YouTube)


TORONTO -- Canadian actors Ryan Reynolds and Catherine O'Hara were honoured with the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards on Friday and received touching song tributes during the ceremony that prompted both tears and laughter.

Former Barenaked Ladies member Steven Page performed an original song, "Canada Love You Back," for Reynolds and thanked him for supporting Canadian causes while poking fun at the actor.

In his reaction video, the Vancouver-born star of the "Deadpool" film series can be seen laughing and wiping away tears as he watched the tribute.

"Oh, of all of the Canadian Ryans, you've got to be in our top three!" Page sang, prompting a chuckle from Reynolds.

Representatives from the various charities and initiatives that Reynolds has supported, such as Reconciliation Canada and Food Banks Canada, also made appearances in the tribute, as did fellow Canadian actor William Shatner and former Vancouver Canucks players Stan Smyl, Henrik Sedin and Daniel Sedin.

"That was stunning. I mean, that made me cry. Well, I guess I've made it." Reynold said at the end of the tribute.

On Twitter, Reynolds also thanked Page for the tribute and also thanked Governor General Mary May Simon for the honour.

"I’m glad I don’t have to be dead to experience something like this. I’m so beyond touched right now," Reynolds tweeted on Saturday.

For "Schitt's Creek" star Catherine O'Hara, Canadian actor and musician Noah Reid performed an emotional piano cover of "A Case of You," a song written in 1971 by Joni Mitchell, another legendary Canadian icon.

O'Hara can be seen in her reaction video breaking down in tears almost immediately as the song began. Tears then quickly turned to laughter midway through the song as Reid, who also had a lead role on "Schitt's Creek," put on variety of colourful wigs throughout the performance, paying tribute to the colourful wigs that O'Hara's "Schitt's Creek" character wore in the show.

"He obviously had a favourite. I don't blame him! Very flattering," O'Hara said at the end of the performance, before thanking Reid and wiping away more tears.

O'Hara's "Schitt's Creek" co-star Dan Levy also shared the video on Instagram and congratulated her for the award.

"I will be watching this forever. Congratulations, dear Catherine!" he said.